1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to inflatable floatation devices used for recreational purposes that are for carrying on and as an inclusion with a hikers pack to form a pontoon type floatation device suitable for lake or stream travel.
2. Prior Art
Pontoon type float devices for transporting a person on a body of water are not new, with such devices ranging from inner tubes, for supporting a swimmer or fisherman, to large heavy rubber pontoons for supporting a passenger compartment for running rapids. An example of such a fisherman's float device is shown in a Creek, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,217,400 that shows a seat arranged between a pair inflated tubes that a fisherman sits on. Which arrangement is not a pontoon device like that of the invention.
Pontoon float devices are, however, shown in Steel, U.S. Pat. No. 5,290,196; to Baker, U.S. Pat. No. 5,711,240; and to Merritt, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,688, with the Merritt, et al., device employing rigid pontoons. The Steel and Baker patents, like the invention, show seat structures supported between a pair of inflatable pontoons. However the pontoons of these patents are not light in weight nor are they readily filled and deflated. The pontoons of the Steel and Baker patents are unlike those of the invention that are easily transported, in a collapsed condition, by a single hiker who carries them in sacks, or the like, that are attached to a back pack, and with the back pack frame configurable to serve as a seat of the floatation device of the invention. Nor are the devices of these patents capable of being reconfigured into a sleeping platform that may include a tent, or the like, as is the invention, whose seat can be configured as a platform to support a person lying thereon, and with the pontoons having tabs fixed thereto for receiving tent posts fitted into holes in which tabs and pushed into the ground to receive a section of a tent material stretched there over.